Mike White

“'Girls' is a huge show, as far as buzz, and magazine covers, and getting a ton of copy, and awards. And yet I don't think the viewership is huge.”

“There are life lessons that can be derived from reality television.”

“I can be really annoying, but I also feel like I'm a nice person.”

“If I have a male protagonist, it's a studio movie, and if it's a female protagonist, it's an indie movie. That's just how it is. It's not about the studios. It's about America and who goes to see movies. Women are interested in men and women, and men aren't interested in the woman's story. They just aren't.”

“Most of the shows I've worked on have aired three times and are in the dustbin of history.”

“I think living in our culture right now, there's a universal experience where we feel like we become what we do. Sometimes that's rewarding and sometimes that creates an existential crisis.”

“There's something magical about Oaxaca and the vibe of the people.”

“I think movie sets can often be stressful, and people take themselves very seriously.”

“I'm attracted to polarizing characters who upend the civility of life.”

“Sometimes when you write something on the page, it can seem very funny, but when you act it out - and this happens to me a lot, actually - the melancholy of the situation becomes more front and center.”

“It's fun when you create a world to inhabit it and see the other characters from grounds eye view.”

“I find as a viewer, when I go to see comedies, the strain to be funny throughout the whole thing. I start to lose my sense of reality, and it ends up feeling like an empty experience; there's funny stuff in it but I've lost the emotional connection to the characters because it's just so bananas.”

“From my experience, meditating can bring up the most stressful thoughts.”

“I don't feel the breath of a thousand people over my shoulder.”

“The things that drive me crazy are coming from this place of people suffering because of people polluting into rivers or whatever. It's not simply just about systems; it's an emotional reaction to seeing animals or people suffering.”

“There's a victory in letting go of your expectations.”

“I believe, in general, that even people that are self-pitying, you can feel for them.”

“There's something very touching to me about someone almost communicating to themselves in some way - trying to come to some deeper understanding of yourself and having compassion for yourself.”

“What I find frustrating about scripted television is that it's rare that you are surprised by how you feel about the character, or how you feel about the show.”

“I started out writing when I was young; stuff about exposing the truth about how people are not what they appear, about how they are much more dysfunctional than they seem. Pulling back the curtain - that felt smart. But as I got older, exposing how frail people can be seems less and less deep.”